The Tales of Ueda Akinari Literary Elements

short stories, fiction

The place where most of Ueda Akinari’s stories have been set is traditional Japan. The time varies from story to story.

- The narrators in the stories of Ueda Akinari are in the third person and they support the protagonists. For example, in the story The Blue Hood, the narrator holds the view that the Zen Master Kaian was a miracle to the villagers for he stopped the unnatural habits of the abbot.

The story The Blue Hood caries a somber tone because the narrator tells the story of an abbot who was killing and eating people. The mood of the story is melancholic.

They vary from story to story. For example, in the story The Blue Hood, the protagonist is the Zen Master Kaian who came to console the villagers that were afraid for their lives because of the actions of the abbot who was killing and eating people. The antagonist of the story is the abbot who was terrifying the villagers because he would kill and eat some of them.

The major conflict of the story The Blue Hood are the actions of the abbot which were unnatural and they fazed and terrified the villagers for he would capture, kill and eat people.

The climax of the story The Blue Hood is arrived at when Kaian who was a Zen Master went to the abbot and taught him how to abstain from the lust of killing and eating human beings.

In the story, The Kibitsu Cauldron, Hikoroku had foreshadowed that if Shotaro did not keep the instructions that he was given in order to avoid being killed by the ghost of his wife, it would kill him. This happened when on the last day to follow the instructions, Shotaro got out in the wee hours of the morning and was killed by the ghost.

In the story, The Blue Hood, Kaian understated the actions of the abbot by calling them foolishness and perversity. This is because the abbot was a cannibal who was killing villagers and causing unrest.

In the stories of Ueda Akinari, the characters allude to The Buddha, his teachings and actions. This is because he is the founder of the Buddhist religion which is the central religion in the stories.

Visual imagery in the description of Tegona of Mama as, ‘…she wore a hempen robe with a blue collar; her hair was uncombed, and she wore no shoes, but with a face like the full moon, and a smile like a lovely blossom, she surpassed the fine ladies in the capital, wrapped in silk brocades woven with threads of gold.’ The narrator used similes and adjectives to build the imagery.

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The narrator of the story, The Blue Hood draws a parallel between the abbot who was a cannibal and was causing unrest in the village and the Zen Master Kaian who was considered holy and restored peace to the village.

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- In the story On Poverty and Wealth, the gold coins that were owned by Sanai are personified by being given a spirit and the ability to converse with their owner.